This invention generally relates to radar systems and techniques for determining the angular location of a target and specifically to a monopulse radar processing system and technique for maintaining the accuracy of the monopulse ratio in the presence of multiple mainlobe jammers and multiple sidelobe jammers.
One of the problems facing surveillance and fire control radar systems today is target detection and estimation of target angle in the presence of severe jamming interference. This problem is particularly important for next generation radar systems used in missile defense. Recently, interest has been generated toward a goal of implementing radar systems in airborne and spaceborne platforms for large area surveillance. A problem associated with achieving this goal is developing a radar system capable of detecting targets while rejecting unwanted information such as jammers and clutter.
Radar systems implementing antenna arrays typically form beam patterns comprising a central beam, i.e., main lobe, and surrounding minor lobes, i.e., sidelobes. Typically, it is desired to have a narrow mainlobe having high gain, and low sidelobes. To detect a desired target and reject unwanted clutter and jamming, the mainlobe is steered toward the target of interest. The desired target within the mainlobe is enhanced and the response to clutter and jamming outside the mainlobe is attenuated. However, if a jammer is located within the mainlobe, it becomes difficult to detect the target of interest. This problem is exacerbated in the situation where multiple jammers exist.
Radar systems have been developed to cancel a single jammer in the mainlobe. Such a system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,600,326 issued to Yu et al., which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. However, these systems require a priori knowledge of the jammer location. Thus, a need exists for a radar system having the ability to detect a target of interest in the presence of multiple mainlobe jammers. A need also exists for a radar system having the capability to cancel multiple mainlobe jammers without requiring a priori knowledge of jammer locations. Further, a need exists for a radar system having the capability to detect a target of interest in the presence of multiple mainlobe and multiple sidelobe jammers.
A radar system for detecting and maintaining a detection of a target of interest in the presence of interference includes an antenna array, a summer, a sub-array beamformer, and a monopulse processor. Antenna array element data are provided to the summer to form a plurality of sub-arrays. The sub-array data are provided to the sub-array beamformer for forming respective sub-array beam patterns. The monopulse processor includes a monopulse sum-difference beamformer and a monopulse ratio former. The monopulse sum-difference beamformer forms sum and difference beams from the sub-array beam patterns, and the monopulse ratio former forms at least one monopulse ratio from the sum and difference beams.